Broken hand forces lightweight Alex Karalexis out of WEC 44 contest

Former “The Ultimate Fighter 1” cast member and current WEC lightweight Alex Karalexis (10-4 MMA, 4-2 WEC) has been forced to withdraw from a scheduled contest with Kamal Shalorus (4-0-1 MMA, 0-0 WEC) after suffering a broken hand.
Fighters.com was the first to report Karalexis’ withdrawal from the WEC 44 prelim contest, and MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) has since confirmed the change with sources close to the event.

Featuring a highly anticipated matchup between current WEC featherweight champion Mike Brown and top challenger Jose Aldo, “WEC 44: Brown vs. Aldo” takes place Nov. 18 at the The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas.

Karalexis has now been forced out of back-to-back WEC events. The Massachusetts native had been slated to fight Anthony Pettis at WEC 43 before an injury forced him off the card, as well.

A replacement for Karalexis has not yet been determined, and a timeframe for his return has not been set.

Shalorus, who is a WEC newcomer, owns three TKO victories among his four career wins, including a 66-second TKO of Jeff Davis (10-4 at the time) when the Texas-based English-Iranian fighter made his MMA debut last year.

The full WEC 44 card currently includes:

MAIN CARD

Champ Mike Brown vs. Jose Aldo (for WEC featherweight title)

Manny Gamburyan vs. Leonard Garcia

Karen Darabedyan vs. Rob McCullough

Danny Castillo vs. Shane Roller

PRELIMINARY CARD (un-aired)

Kamal Shalorus vs. TBA*

L.C. Davis vs. Diego Nunes

John Franchi vs. Cub Swanson

Antonio Banuelos vs. Kenji Osawa

James Krause vs. Ricardo Lamas

Seth Dikun vs. Frank Gomez

* – Not officially announced.

For complete coverage of WEC 44, stay tuned to the MMA Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.